Tuesday, April 23, 2024 | St. Lawrence County, NY
BY ANDY GARDNER North Country This Week St. Lawrence County’s Board of Health president says any potential spike in COVID-19 cases caused by the recent reopening of select businesses most likely …
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BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week
St. Lawrence County’s Board of Health president says any potential spike in COVID-19 cases caused by the recent reopening of select businesses most likely would not be detected until later this month.
Dr. Andrew Williams addressed the St. Lawrence County legislature finance committee on Monday, May 18 via an online Zoom meeting.
“The nature of transmission of this illness is it takes a little while to determine if the reopening has created more cases,” the doctor told the legislators.
People who are infected and show symptoms generally develop them two to 14 days post infection.
“There will be measurements to determine whether the reopening is safe and not causing an increased problem,” he said. “Daily infection rate is going to be one of the important metrics, as well as daily hospitalization rate.”
As of his report, the county has seen no new cases reported for almost a week.
Despite the limited business reopenings, Dr. Williams said everyone still needs to abide by social distancing prescribed by a governor’s executive order known as “NY on PAUSE.”
“The recommendations about social distancing, the recommendations about masks, those are all still in place,” he said.
He emphasized that the gradual reopening, which the state is permitting in four phases, needs to be slow and deliberate or else we could see more cases.
“It needs to be done in a controlled, measured fashion to avoid mitigating the considerable progress we’ve made as a community,” he said.
And until there is a vaccine or effective treatment, the emphasis needs to be on “identifying new spikes and being able to contain that.”
“We’re not really going to know the impacts of entering phase one for a week or two,” Dr. Williams said.
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